A wide grin extended on Ryder's face as he walked forward.
He was invited a few days earlier—now it was his turn to begin the ritual.
By that I mean, The Ritual of Familiar.
It was indeed, finally his turn to contract a familiar beast from the "Astral Shadow" plain.
As he stepped into the building, a sudden burst of wind swept across his face—the aura radiating from the conjuring room to its enclosure was simply overwhelming.
It wasn't comforting in any way; in fact, it felt like walking into a thunderstorm... Not like he've walk through a thunderstorm before, but you know... The invisible energy radiating was making his hair stand.
But still, despite the discomforting pressure of the aura, he still felt like his body was being drawn toward the direction of the conjuring room.
"Freaking hell..." Ryder murmured under his breath, trying to maintain his composure.
The last thing he wanted was to look weak in front of anyone, especially given his expectations.
After eighteen years of dreaming about this moment, he'd sooner die than embarrass himself now.
This was planet Terra, the planet of summoners. For as long as history could remember, the occupants of this planet had always been known as marked humans.
Although they aren't born as summoners, they become one after a certain period of maturation, when a mark appears on their left shoulder.
This period is not exactly fixed, but it occurs mostly at the beginning of adulthood for the humans on this planet, and in the worst-case scenario, it will take longer, but eventually, they receive the mark to become a summoner.
Ryder had been one of the lucky ones. His mark had appeared just after his eighteenth birthday, while he was in the shower.
The burning sensation had sent him tumbling out of the bathroom, naked and screaming—the pain was simply excruciating.
No one mentioned about the pain that comes along with the mark of invitation to him... Bloody scammers.
The story had circulated through the neighborhood since he was literally living in a village, faster than wildfire and earning Ryder the nickname "Streaking Summoner."
Let's take all those aside, back to the present.
"What colour of mark did Ryder obtain?" Someone whispered from the line.
Just like Ryder and every other person, they received an invitation from the Astral Shadow plain in various colours, indicating the strength of the inviter.
From his merger knowledge, he knows in the conjuring room, the ritual begins, and the soul of the marked human is transferred to the Astral Shadow plain for the contract.
"Keep moving," another voice urged from behind him, startling Ryder from his thoughts.
"My bad, I'm sorry." Ryder nervously scratched his head as he turned around to look at Mara.
Standing beside the door of the conjuring room were two figures, dressed in black cloaks.
They stood absolutely still, like statues carved from stone. Their faces were hidden deep within their hoods, revealing nothing but the glint of their left eye.
Quite errie is you ask me.
Ryder had heard stories about these priests—the Keepers of the Gate, as they were formally known, or "Gloomy Guses" as the students called them in recent times.
"Are you Ryder Levi?" the calm, cold tone of one of the figures beside the door asked as Ryder finally got close enough.
"Yes, I am," replied Ryder, not knowing how they suddenly knew his name. There weren't any documents to fill before visiting the conjuring room, so he should have been nothing but a stranger.
They door opened gently and Ryder knew it was time to step into the room, instead of standing at the entrance all day.
The short-haired girl who had been standing behind him all the while—Mara—sighed with finality.
It would be her turn next, she just wanted the whole thing to be over with real quick.
The room was completely empty, apart from some altars and pillars around. The main focus of the room was the platform in the middle where Ryder and the Gloomy Guses approached.
Gesturing at the platform simultaneously, both of the cloaked figures said, "Climb on the platform."
They instructed Ryder obeyed, not feeling the slightest bit of anxiety. Or at least, that's what he told himself as he wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and stepped onto the raised circular platform.
The stone was cool beneath his feet, but seemed to warm a short while after he climbed onto it, nearly as if it were responding to his presence.
"Before we begin the ritual, we must brief you on all you need to know," one of the cloaked figures, in a black cloak with a red trim, started.
"This is the rune of Shadow; its history dates back to the Stone Age. When humans were still figuring out that round objects roll and pointy sticks hurt, this was already here, waiting for us to discover its potential."
"Our ancestors came into existence to see this rune in this spot during ancient times. Before there were cities or nations, before there was writing or agriculture, the rune was here. It has existed long before many empires and civilizations, witnessing the rise and fall of countless generations." poem.
"At first, they didn't know what it was and were curious about it, but even after many years, they couldn't figure out any useful information. The earliest records speak of priests and old wise women who would sit before the rune for days, seeking wisdom or visions. Some claimed to hear voices, others to see fantastic beasts that would appear and disappear like smoke."
"When they grew up to a certain level of maturity, they suddenly received a mark; this mark is in a variety of colors, and hence, it earned its name—the devil's mark. In those early days, fear and superstition ruled the humans due to their illiteracy."
"Those who received the mark were often banished from their empires and communities, feared and assumed to be touched by evil or cursed by angry gods."
"Some were even killed, their potential never realized."
Ryder thought of his own mark on his shoulder. Would he have been one of those unfortunate ones in those early days?
Would he have been cast out, feared, perhaps even killed for the mark he now wore with pride in this current age?
"But fortunately." The figure voice brought Ryder out of his reverie. "A meeting was called, and a group of all the smartest humans the world had to offer were summoned to unveil the hidden secret of this rune."
Ryder imagined a group of cave people sitting around a fire and scratching their heads in confusion while they stared at drawings of the rune. The mental image was so absurd that he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud. This was, after all, supposed to be a moment of seriousness.
"The study of this rune took centuries, as multiple generations of humans did their part; they died while passing the knowledge of their discoveries to the next generation to continue onward."
After multiple clueless attempts, they managed to rework the pattern of the rune into a readable scripture in language of magic—the only language that the rune obeys and managed to make the first summoner.
"Soon, all the humans became interested in the rune, and all wanted to perform the ritual. It eventually became a cherished tradition."
"Now, with that said, we will be briefing you on the necessary intel about your summoning journey so you should know the expected intensity of your trial."
Ryder straightened his posture, this was the most serious part. This part, at least, might contain information he hadn't dozed through in class.
"Starting with the mark, it comes in a variety of different colors. There are five different colors of marks—the brown, the orange, the red, the black, and lastly, the white."
"The brown is the weakest. It shows that the summoner is probably going to summon a weak beast; the orange will summon a stronger beast; the red will summon the mightiest beasts."
"As for the black and white mark, not human have been given the invitation for over a hundred years. The black and white are classified as the same level, however, the differentiation is that the black would summon a demon or devil and not a mere beast, while for the white, the summoner could summon a divine being."
"Now Ryder, take off your shirt," the other cloaked figure, with a similar black cloak with blue trim, instructed.
"Right," Ryder smiled confidently as he undressed his garment—a white attire with purple trim by its tip.
There, right there, a clear black mark was visible on his left shoulder.
The two Gloomy Guses standing by the platform were taken aback at the color of his mark. "A black mark! This is very rare!"
Ryder's grin extended as he heard the comments from the two figures beside the platform.
"This is the first black mark that has appeared in the last one hundred years."
Pride filled Ryder as he swelled his chest, temporarily replacing his nervousness with confidence.
Tilting his head with a prideful smirk, Ryder spoke, "Go on."
"When the ritual begins, your soul will be teleported to the Astral Shadow plain. In your habitat, there will be a variety of demons and devils of different power levels and different affinities."
You will receive the direction of the beast that invited you to the plain after you have spent some time alive.
"'After you have spent some time alive,'" Ryder repeated slowly. "That... doesn't exactly sound like a comforting phrase."
The Gloomy Guses ignored his comment, continuing their final briefing.
"You are to follow the trail; as you do so, you will face some traps and challenges. All those traps and obstacles are the tests given to you by the beast, so keep your guard up at all times. No familiar chooses an unworthy summoner."
"Being a black-marked summoner is very lucky and unlucky at the same time. If you succeed, you will be termed as a lucky one, and if you don't... you die!"
"Die?" he echoed, his voice suddenly sounding younger and less sure. "Like, die die? As in, not coming back?"
There it was. Plain and simple. The bitter truth—failure meant death. Not social taunts and embarrassment or a life of regret, but actual, eternal slumber of death.
"The beasts do not care about who you are or what race you are from. They will be testing you with obstacles that will cause even them trouble in order to ensure that the soon-to-be summoner is worthy of them."
Ordinary humans are only capable of handling a test from a brown mark, an orange mark, and rarely a red mark without dying.
"And I'm... what? Extraordinary?" Ryder voice cracked, trying to display some of his earlier courage but failing miserably.
"That is yet to be seen," the figure with purple-lined robe responded quietly. "The mark has chosen you, but whether you are worthy of it is another matter entirely."
"There is a 0.5 percent chance that you will survive, Ryder. Whatever the percentage, it is still a chance."
"Are you ready for the ritual, Ryder?"
Ready? How could anyone be ready for this?
He stared at the Gloomy Guses, at their partially visible faces covered by their hood, wondering if they took some sort pleasure in delivering these death sentences to new initiates.
"No! I am not ready." Ryder decided, picking his short up from the ground with crushed spirit and dream.
Walking towards the end of the platform, he attempted to exit, but then a sudden force flung him back to the center of the platform. "Oh, we didn't tell you about this earlier," one of the figures said.
"From the moment you step onto the platform as an invited human, your soul automatically binds with the platform you are standing on and the Astral Shadow plain. You cannot leave until you attend to your invitation."
"Ryder, I am sorry to break the news to you, but unfortunately, you have no choice but to contract your beast."
Ryder's eyes widened. "I said, I am not ready, I'm not interested in dying dammit!" Ryder barked. "I ain't wanna do this crap no more."
At first, he locked eyes with the cloaked figure that spoke to him, and right in front of his eyes, a long scroll containing the incantation to activate the rune materialized out of thin air.
Not giving him any answers, both figures echoed the incantation in a slow and steadily synchronized.
"Ahhrrrggh! Stop it, stop all this! I don't want to do this!" Ryder cried out. Ryder rushed towards the cloaked figures, but the invisible barrier of the platform blocked him from proceeding further or leaving the platform.
The incantation got louder and louder, the rune glowed brighter and brighter, and after a while, a flash of purple light consumed Ryder's view.
His soul was teleported away.